Colliery, Rhodesia

Description

This photograph of a coal-mining operation in Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) is from the Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection at the Library of Congress. Frank G. Carpenter (1855–1924) was an American writer of books on travel and world geography, whose works helped to popularize cultural anthropology and geography in the United States in the early years of the 20th century. Consisting of photographs taken and gathered by Carpenter and his daughter Frances (1890–1972) to illustrate his writings, the collection includes an estimated 16,800 photographs and 7,000 glass and film negatives. Zimbabwe is endowed with plentiful supplies of coal, particularly in the northwestern part of the country. The Hwange Colliery and its associated mine, located near Hwange in the present-day province of Matabeleland North, was founded in 1899.